Quality assessment of aerospace materials with optical coherence tomography

Ping Liu; Roger M. Groves; Rinze Benedictus

doi:10.1117/12.922511

4 May 2012 Quality assessment of aerospace materials with optical coherence tomography

Ping Liu, Roger M. Groves, Rinze Benedictus

Proceedings Volume 8430, Optical Micro- and Nanometrology IV; 84300I (2012) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.922511
Event: SPIE Photonics Europe, 2012, Brussels, Belgium

Abstract

The increasing demand of the aerospace industry for new functional materials requires appropriate methods for quality assessment. It is a new challenge nowadays to characterize materials with microstructure quickly, accurately, and nondestructively. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a contactless and non-destructive technique for obtaining the internal structure of turbid materials. In the past 20 years it has been continuously developed and nearly exclusively applied for biomedical imaging of tissues while OCT-based methods for non-biomedical investigation tasks, e.g. within the field of non-destructive testing for material inspection, are rarely reported. Therefore, here we demonstrate and evaluate the suitability of OCT for the assessment of aerospace materials, e.g. coatings, and glass fibre composites. A well-designed OCT system was built using a broad bandwidth light source with centre wavelength of 1550 nm. 2D galvanometer scanners and an optical delay line incorporated in the system make cross-sectional imaging available. Finally in combination with appropriate image processing, the thickness of thin films and the microstructure of materials can be determined for quality assessment.

Citation Download Citation

Ping Liu, Roger M. Groves, and Rinze Benedictus "Quality assessment of aerospace materials with optical coherence tomography", Proc. SPIE 8430, Optical Micro- and Nanometrology IV, 84300I (4 May 2012); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.922511

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